Glacial history and forefield development of Aldegondabreen since the Little Ice Age maximum extent

Abstract

A geomorphological map has been produced to investigate the glacial history of Aldegondabreen, a small land terminating valley glacier located on the western coast of Spitsbergen. The glacier has changed its dynamic from a tidewater glacier into a land-terminating glacier during the last advance/retreat cycle, and the focus is therefore to reconstruct the glacial history of this cycle. The map cover the terrestrial glacial forefield and is constructed from field investigations as well as analysis of high-resolution aerial images. Landforms identified in the map have been divided into different categories based on depositional process. These categories are subglacial landforms, supraglacial landforms, glacifluvial landforms and coastal landforms. Each landform mapped in the forefield will be described and interpreted. The project is also identifying the main units that the forefield is made up of and how the evolution of the forefield have been over time from glacier covered to ice free. A schematic model is made to illustrate how the forefield develop over time and how these main building blocks are deposited relative to each other over time. The results of this study suggest that Aldegondabreen has been dynamic polythermal glacier during the last glacial advance and that the freshly exposed forefield is constantly modified by fluvial erosion which lower the preservation potential of the landform assemblage in the forefield.